


Off-Season

by Persianjuliet



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Autumn, Camp Campbell (Camp Camp), Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Future Fic, Happy Ending, Introspection, Nostalgia, Sad David (Camp Camp), Winter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22570729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persianjuliet/pseuds/Persianjuliet
Summary: Ten years later, David isn’t as happy as he thought he’d be.
Relationships: David & Gwen (Camp Camp)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 36





	1. Dying Leaves

The thin, cold September sun washed over David’s shoulders as he leaned back against a tree. Splashes of afternoon light and very little heat painted the leafy trees in pale shades of orange and brown between the deep, unchanging green of the firs. The camp counselor reached up and brushed a few papery brown leaves out of his hair. He plucked another from a fold of his neckerchief and examined it, rolling the brittle stem between his long, thin fingers. 

Autumn was well underway in Sleepy Peak, and the dying leaves were leached of color by the cooling air in the forest. Flakes of dry leaf crumbled and fell away from the supporting skeleton of veins as David rubbed his thumb over and over it, face blank and faraway, lost in thought entirely. His fingers were streaked in rusty red dust, the debris of fall coloring his skin to match his hair. 

David let the torn and dusty leaf fall lightly to the grass, frowning. With a massive sigh and a great, back-cracking stretch, he settled himself more comfortably on the grass. Wrapped in his knitted Camp Campbell sweatshirt over his official counselor’s shirt, he had been perfectly comfortable in the midday air. Now, though, a breeze was picking up in the forest and he felt goosebumps rise on his bare legs and knobby knees.

It had been a long, long week, David reflected. He felt the tightly knotted muscles in his shoulders relax slightly as he lost himself in the smell of the rich mountain air. He wasn’t made for things like paperwork and tax revisions, he truly wasn’t. He wasn’t made to be alone, either, and once the campers and counselors left him at the end of the summer, his solitude made the labor all the more unbearable. Or perhaps it was the other way around. David didn’t know.

It had been easier a few years ago, before Gwen moved to California for that... what had she said? A consultant position, or an internship, or something. Maybe David hadn’t been listening particularly closely, but he had been absolutely distraught over losing his CBBFL. His buddy. His best pal, who was so good at the paperwork and the management and so helpful when it came to all the little nit-picky confusing small print that came with running a camp... Gone. Darn it. 

David lost more sunlight then, daydreaming about what it would be like to have his prickly best friend back at camp. When he sighed, low and long, his breath trickled out in a thin white string that rose, hovered, dissipated. The sun passed behind a cloud, as if his exhalation was enough to push it there and block out the light.

Lately, the sighs came more and more frequently. David wasn’t sure that he would call the old days of Camp Campbell easy, but they had been less tiring. Or less dull. Or maybe it was that they had been more; more light-hearted, more fresh, more exciting, more... more everything. There was more color and laughter in his memories than existed in the camp of the present, certainly. 

David thought that maybe it was the campers. Perhaps the kids of the last few summers just weren’t camp material. He hadn’t bonded with them as much as he used to- but, no. Those kinds of thoughts were mean and uncharitable, and David pushed them away with some force. It wasn’t the kids’ fault he was feeling this way. And it probably wasn’t Gwen, either. 

The wind jostled him with renewed force in its path to disrupt the leaves from their unknowable patterns. David tugged the sleeves of his sweater down over his hands, which were red and aching with cold. 

“Maybe it’s just me.” 

The leaves blew over and around his legs as he sat up and wrapped his arms around himself. Too-thin, his fingers pressed into the familiar indentations between his ribs, even under layers of cloth.

“Maybe I’m changing.”

David shivered, then stood. It was time to go back to camp.


	2. Carved Wood

As run-down and creaky as the old camp was, it never seemed so to David in the summertime months. The time when the sun burned out the shadows between the broken railings, when laughter and shouting overwhelmed the sounds of fragile structures being pulled apart by the clever collaboration of nature and time. 

David missed the summer. He felt as though his life was composed of years and years of missing the summer, of deadened feelings and muted color, with interludes of life that flashed by like a dragonfly over water. Three months out of a year was too quick, too busy, and never enough to keep him warm through the winter.

It was impossible to stay warm in the winter here. David dreaded it, even as he enjoyed the richness of autumn. He felt the cold right down to his bones, and with only loose-boarded walls and an ancient wood stove to aid him, there was not enough clothing in his wardrobe to insulate him. 

When the frost hit Sleepy Peak each year, he resigned himself to months of persistent cold, of shivering and rubbing his hands over his nose and curling into a ball so tight his muscles ached for hours afterwards.

But he still had a little while yet. The dilapidated camp needed the usual maintenance, and David was the only one left to do it; hopefully before the weather turned. Sitting before the desk in the counselor’s cabin- David’s cabin until the end of spring- he groaned as he began making a checklist. He mumbled aloud to himself as he scratched out the little empty box before each item.

“Fix the second and third toilets, order a new toilet to replace number five... go into town for screws and a new drill battery... patch the tents and order new sleeping bags- good lord, I still don’t know how many the raccoons got hold of this time- I might need to check the gear for mold, too. See how much I can afford to fix in the kitchen... oh dear.” 

The amount of work he was facing was absolutely crushing. Every year he made this checklist, each time without any help, and every year it grew longer, more expensive, and more impossible. 

Already feeling lower than he had in years, and overwhelmed by the scope of the tasks before him, David flung the pencil away in a fit of pique. He slumped in his chair with a sigh, his elbows on the desk.

For a long time then, David simply sat and stared, eyes flicking from one thing to another as his mind boiled over. His clipboard with the terrible list, only half-done; his sparse photos of former colleagues and campers, all gone now; and a crude carving near the lip of the desk.

His left hand rested on the carved picture now, tracing its lines with long familiarity. The wood used to be rough where the tip of the knife skittered and dug deep, tearing up the desk, but David’s thumb had traced it so many times that it had become smoother, the splinters rubbed away. It was a childish carving of a penis- David had been so outraged at that offense- and a clumsy message in capital letters, cut off when David apprehended the vandal midway through. “MAX WA”. 

David stared at it. “MAX WAS HERE”. That was what it was supposed to say, he was certain. Max was here. Max, who had plagued him and tested him more than any camper before or since, was here. Max the hellion, Max the rebel, Max the boy who kicked and bit and shoved his way into David’s heart... was here. 

Max wasn’t here, though. None of the old crowd- Gwen, Mr. Campbell, the old Quartermaster, not even Space Kid, who had come back for four more summers after that first one- none of them were here. Eventually, everyone left Camp Campbell. 

Max, too. He had left at the end of that summer in the battered old school bus, looking back over his shoulder reproachfully. He seemed- to David- to be saying “Is that all there is?” His eyes held accusations David hadn’t understood. 

The phone number Max had written on his registration form led to a disconnected line.

It had been seven years. He might look like a stranger. He might not even know if they passed on the street, David thought. “MAX WAS HERE”, David thought. 

David traced his finger under the graffiti, slowly spelling out his own message in letters invisible to all but him. 

“David is not here.”

He buried his head in his hands and began to cry. 

The phone rang.


End file.
